When chef/owners Nick Carter and Nathan Bathurst were scouting for new kitchen space for their growing catering business, Farm Fresh Catering, they happened upon a turnkey cafe with a kitchen large enough to use for catering. According to terms of their lease, they were required to offer weekday cafe hours to service workers and visitors of the Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center and adjacent office buildings in Lafayette.

And, so, Carter and Bathurst also became restaurateurs.

Something special happens when classically schooled chefs join forces to cook up traditionally simple breakfast and lunch offerings. Ordinary breakfast burritos, everyday egg dishes and basic pancake stacks transform when prepared with a trained hand and attention to detail. Off Campus Cafe is now a destination breakfast and lunch joint for healthy eaters, not just a hospital cafe serving those visiting or caring for the ill and infirm.

On any given brunching Sunday, it's not unusual at most joints to wait in line to get a table. Rather than waiting 30 minutes on the curb, however, you should consider taking a short drive to Off Campus Cafe, where the coffee is hot and the service is sweet -- so sweet you might just get a hug from your waitress on the way out the door. Chefs Carter and Bathhurst check in with patrons from behind the line, from the open kitchen, showing genuine interest in the customers' dining experience. You might have eaten only two eggs and toast, but they want to ensure those eggs were just to your liking.

What the space lacks in decor or notable ambiance is replaced by the genuine warmth from both the staff and the owners. It's the type of place you can lunch at multiple times a week and feel at home. The comforting smell of fresh baked biscuits, and the welcoming aroma of cinnamon and sugar wafting up from fresh baked cinnamon rolls might have a lot to do with that. Or maybe it's just that you can have your choice of five different types of made-from-scratch soup during lunch. Whatever the reason, dining at Off Campus Café just feels cozy.

Our brunch began with our smiling server highlighting the daily specials, both breakfast and lunch options.

Waffling back and forth between lunch and breakfast, I succumbed to "The Irish," house-cured and slow-cooked corned beef hash with eggs. Tender and flavorsome brisket with sweet notes of allspice combine with diced yellow potato in Off Campus' version of this breakfast favorite. It was difficult to decide between hash and any one of the four featured benedicts du jour. As a compromise, I chose my any-style eggs poached and lobbied for a side of hollandaise. Trained in the art of fine French cooking at the Culinary School of the Rockies, and under Master Chef Michel Receveur in Avignon, France, it's no wonder their hollandaise sauce impressed. Multiple finger swipes to the bottom of the ramekin were needed to ensure we'd drained every last buttery drop.

Now, would you really expect to find something called the Aussie Burger in Lafayette? You will at the Off Campus Cafe, where you can get this burger topped with bacon, house-pickled beats, grilled pineapple, cheddar, lettuce and tomato.

Pulling apart the fluffy biscuit into its individual layers, slathering on butter and homemade strawberry jam, then devouring the entire thing was the highlight of the morning. Accompanied by a fine espresso, breakfast couldn't have gotten much better.

The only eye contact I had with my dining companion was after he had taken his first bite of Off Campus' Classic breakfast burrito. After cutting into the dish, smothered with pork green chili, and pulling the fork from his lips, he looked up at me with a wide grin. For the rest of the meal, his face was buried in his dish, savoring each forkful with his eyes, as well as his mouth. Scrambled eggs, chunky bites of potato, chorizo and nutty avocado were overstuffed into their tortilla encasement. A zesty hand-chopped pico de gallo added zing. But the pork green chili wasthe piece de resistance, elevating this everyday breakfast item up and over ordinary into the extraordinary.

Off Campus is open for breakfast and lunch weekdays Monday through Friday. It's closed Saturdays but is open for Sunday brunch. Soups and specials change on a daily basis. During the week, try anything from the solid lineup of typical breakfast items such as omelets, crepes, pancakes and breakfast sandwiches. But if benedicts are your thing, you'll have to wait until Sunday to sample the heavenly hollandaise.

Lunch is wholesome, fresh and fast, with choices ranging from pre-made sandwiches to go, to made-to-order paninis, salads and stuffed potatoes. Have yourself "a bowl and a roll" -- choose from the five vegetarian and meaty soup options, and dip in with a freshly baked caramelized onion roll.

Menu items here might be simple and straightforward. Anywhere else, they might even be considered mundane, but at Off Campus, armed with culinary know-how, Carter and Bathurst prepare even a basic item such as ham and cheese with an expert hand.